


Hootie and the Morons

by hapakitsune



Category: Social Network (2010) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-10 20:25:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/470334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hapakitsune/pseuds/hapakitsune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joe's cat takes a liking to their new neighbor, Jesse Eisenberg.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hootie and the Morons

**Author's Note:**

> This is a semi-AU, meaning that Joe is more or less exactly the same (former child star studying at USC!) and so is Rami Malek, but everyone else has been turned into students at USC. Logic, I have very little of it.

Joe can't find Hootie.

This is, sadly, not the first time this has happened. Hootie really likes to wander off and scare the shit out of him. Invariably, Hootie will come back just as Joe is about to give up all hope and then Joe will spend the better part of a week lavishing affection on the stupid cat. Rami has this theory that Hootie does it on purpose. Joe thinks he's probably right about that.

Joe opens the door to his apartment and calls, "Hootie? Where'd you run off to, you mangy bastard?"

The door to the apartment next door is open and Joe remembers vaguely that Emma, the slightly terrifying but really funny redhead who occasionally brings Joe pity pies, had said something about getting a new roommate. He knocks on the door frame and calls, "Hello? Anyone home?"

Joe hears a clatter from inside the apartment and a moment later a guy with very curly hair and wide blue eyes comes to the door, Hootie cradled in his arms. "Um," says the new guy. "Hello?"

"That's my cat," Joe says, pointing. "Sorry if he bothered you, he just likes to run off sometimes."

"Oh," says the guy. "I was wondering where he came from. I didn't think I had somehow ended up with a third cat, though I suppose it's possible that I could have adopted a new one while in some sort of sleep haze."

There's a soft meowing from about floor level. Joe looks down and sees a small grey kitten twining around the new guy's ankles. "You adopt cats?"

"Yes." The new guy holds out Hootie, who yowls grumpily. Joe takes the traitorous cat in his arms and smiles at the new guy.

"I'm Joe," he says. "I live next door if you ever, I don't know, run out of cat food or something. And this idiot cat is Hootie."

The guy bites his (full, lush, Joe's lizard brain supplies) lower lip and smiles. "Thanks," he says. "I'm, um, Jesse. This little one is Shanti."

Shanti meows and butts her head against the toe of Joe's shoe. Joe grins helplessly and says, "I'd like to meet the other one some time."

"He's pretty shy," Jesse says. "But - you're a cat person, maybe he'll come out for you."

"With his cat-lover sensing powers," Joe intones. Jesse looks like he's trying very hard not to smile. Joe suddenly feels awkward hovering in the door; he can see piles of unpacked boxes lying around inside the apartment. "I'm sorry, I'm keeping you from unpacking. I'll come back some other time. Tell Emma I say hi."

"Okay," Jesse says. He leans down and scoops up the kitten. Joe bites back his sudden, horrible instinct to coo at the way the tiny kitten curls up in Jesse's (large, capable) hands and instead hurriedly gets the hell out of there before he can do something stupid.

He sets Hootie down inside the apartment and says, "You're an evil mastermind of a cat, don't think I'm not onto you."

Hootie looks bored and wanders off towards the food and water bowls. Joe sighs and reflects that he may have spoiled him. He goes back to his table and opens up his cinema studies text book. He tries concentrating, but it's kind of boring to read about how film productions work when you've actually been on a film shoot.

He pulls out his phone and texts Emma, _met your new roommate he seems nice._

Emma replies after a couple of minutes with, _isn't he?? a little shyy, but he is so adorable I cant complain._

 _what's the deal? he a student?_ Joe asks her.

_yeah grad some sort of insane genius or somtehing. i dont even know ahaha_

_cool._ Joe sets his phone back down. Hootie comes over and rubs his head against Joe's ankle. "I'm not forgiving you," he tells the turncoat cat. "You're a furry little monster."

\-----

Joe comes home from classes the next day, tired and a little annoyed with life. He fiddles with his key until he gets the door open and almost immediatley, Hootie streaks out.

"Oh, Jesus," sighs Joe. He goes inside, drops off his backpack, then goes to look for his erstwhile cat. He doesn't have to look far; Hootie is scratching at the door to Jesse and Emma's apartment, mewling sadly.

The door opens and Jesse peers out, looking befuzzled. His hair is rumpled and he's wearing a pair of glasses. He looks completely adorable. The moment the door is open a crack, Hootie runs in between Jesse's legs and vanishes inside the apartment.

"Hi," Joe says, waving. "I think my cat likes you or something. Or maybe he has a crush on one of your cats."

"I don't know if cats have crushes," Jesse says blankly.

"I'm sure they do," Joe says. "Sorry, can I just get inside and rescue my cat?"

"Oh, right," Jesse says. He opens the door wider and gestures Joe inside. "Sorry, I just - I fell asleep on my books."

"I get it, man," says Joe cheerfully. "That happens. So, did you just transfer here?" He peers around the kitchen, but doesn't see Hootie's tel-tale orange fur anywhere.

"No, I just - my last living situation fell through and I was Emma's TA last semester." Jesse sits down the the small kitchen table, which is covered in papers. "So she offered me a place to stay."

"That's lucky," Joe remarks. The little grey kitten moseys on over to Joe and tries to climb up Joe's foot. Joe bends down to pry Shanti off him and he sets her down on the kitchen table, where she curls up and goes to sleep. "You're a grad student?"

"PhD," says Jesse.

"Oh, jeez, you normal people always make me feel so lazy," Joe says despondently. "I'm twenty-seven and I still don't have my Bachelor's."

Jesse's mouth quirks up in a smile. "Normal people?"

"Like, you probably did the whole high school whatever thing," Joe says, poking his head into the bathroom. "I spent a lot of time being home schooled and then I put off coming to college for _years._ "

"Home schooled?" asks Jesse curiously.

"Oh, uh," Joe says, suddenly feeling awkward. "I'm - I was a child actor."

Jesse looks interested at that. "Anything I might have seen?"

Joe fidgets, stalling, then sighs and says, "Jurassic Park."

"Oh. I've actually never seen that," Jesse says, looking embarrassed. "I don't - I never really watch movies. Or TV."

Joe prods at the door to Emma's room and Hootie peeks his head out. "There you are," Joe says, exasperated, and he leans down to pick him up. "It's fine," he adds to Jesse. "It's actually kind of refreshing to meet someone who doesn't know what I looked like when I was ten years old."

Jesse still looks like he's feeling awkward, so Joe sits down next to him with Hootie tucked neatly into his arms, and he says, "Is this going to be weird? I promise I'm actually a totally normal guy."

He hears a smoky, raspy laugh and he looks up to see Emma leaning against the doorframe to her room. "Yeah," she says dryly, "Totally normal. Because naming your cat Hootie is clearly the sign of a well-adjusted young man."

"You're such a meanie, Emily Jean," Joe complains.

"It's what happens when some moron's cat comes and wakes me up from my nap." She folds herself into one of the chairs. "I see you've met Jesse."

Jesse waves and says, "Hi, yes."

"I like to think we've bonded over our mutual love for cats," Joe says, grinning toothily at Jesse, who flushes a little. "And the fact that this little bastard apparently has a crush on Jesse." He nods at Hootie, who yawns and tucks his head into the crease of Joe's elbow.

"Right," Emma says, eying him closely. "Of course he does."

\-----

Joe stays up way late into the night studying for his Calculus test the day and he ends up passing out onto his book. He wakes up when Hootie sits on his head and he sighs, reaching up to pry the stupid cat off him.

"You realize I have to be able to breathe in order to feed you," he tells Hootie. He looks at the clock and sees that he has half an hour before class. He makes a run for the shower, sliding the last few inches in his stocking feet.

After he has showered, he has twenty minutes left. He gets dressed and heads downstairs. He passes by a Starbucks on the way and ducks in to grab a coffee. Andrew, the overly chipper British barista, beams at Joe and says, "Hey, man!"

"Hi, Andrew. Just a regular Pike's, please." Joe slides over his gift card and then accepts the hot cup of coffee. "How're things?"

"Great!" Andrew chirps. "You?"

"Got a final in -" Joe checks his watch. "Fifteen minutes."

"Good luck!" Andrew says brightly and he waves as Joe heads out the door.

Joe somehow makes it through his test without spontaneously bursting into tears or having some sort of post-Pacific panic attack. When he's finished, he goes to Rami's apartment to play some video games. He ends up falling asleep on the couch with the PS3 controller clutched in his hands and when he wakes up his phone is ringing.

"Your stupid cat is in our apartment again," Emma says when he picks up.

"I closed the door behind me," Joe says stupidly, voice clogged from sleep. "How could he have gotten in?"

"I don't know, maybe your cat is secretly a ninja or a ghost or something. Just - Jesse is going to adopt him if you don't stop this from happening." Emma sounds amused rather than anything else. "Maybe you should swap cats, he says Shanti likes you."

"Really?" Joe asks, smiling stupidly.

"Yeah."

"I can hear you rolling your eyes," Joe tells her and she laughs. "I'm on my way." He hangs up and rolls off the couch with a thump. He groans and drags himself upright. "Yo, I'm heading out."

"What's that about Hootie?" asks Rami. "He do his disappearing act again?"

"He's, like, stalking my neighbor," Joe says. "Emma's new roommate. It's weird."

"Cool," says Rami. "See you later."

"Bye, dude," Joe says, and he heads out. He is starting to consider the merits of buying some sort of tracking collar for Hootie, or maybe just cat-proofing his home so that Hootie the Houdini can't escape anymore.

Jesse is waiting on his doorstep with Hootie in his lap. He gets up when Joe comes down the hall and says, "This cat is seriously sneaky."

"I know," Joe says forlornly.

"I was petting him for about five minutes before I realized he wasn't Snow Leopard," Jesse says. "I don't know how he got in."

"I don't know how he got _out_." Joe takes Hootie and says, "So I feel bad about the invasion of the cat. Let me, I don't know, treat you to dinner or something. Because I'm betting this won't be the end of it."

Jesse looks hunted for a moment, and then he very obviously steels himself. "Sure," he says. "That sounds like fun."

"You don't have to lie," Joe says, amused.

"No, no. Really." Jesse smiles and it actually looks mostly real. "Dinner. I'll, um, talk to you about when I'm free. Because I'm busy. A lot."

"Cool," Joe says. "See you around." He waits patiently for Jesse to realize he's standing in front of Joe's door.

"Oh, uh -" Jesse gestures awkwardly. "I'll get out of your way." He sidles away from Joe's door.

Joe grins a little and waves before heading inside. He sets Hootie in the sink and glares at him.

"One of these days, I'm going to turn that faucet on," he warns the orange menace, who just gives him a disbelieving look before climbing out of the sink.

\-----

"I watched your movie," Jesse says the next time Joe goes to retrieve Hootie from the other apartment. "The one with dinosaurs."

"Jurassic Park," Joe supplies, grinning. Hootie and Shanti are eying each other across the table. "You did? Why?"

"Emma said it was good," Jesse says. "I liked it."

"Are you lying?" Joe asks, who hadn't thought that Jesse would be the type to like an action movie. "Because it's okay if you didn't."

"I liked you." Jesse ducks his head, smiling and looking a little embarrassed. He has dimples, Joe notes with a sense of amusement. "You were a cute kid."

"I think most people thought I was annoying." Joe tugs one of Jesse's books over to him and reads, "Dreaming of a mail-order husband: Russian-American Internet romance."

"Um," Jesse says. "I'm writing my thesis on mail-order brides."

"Really?" Joe asks with interest.

"Well, sort of. As part of the whole, um, Russian immigration - you don't want to hear this, it's boring," Jesse says, shoving the books away. "Really."

"Can you speak Russian?" Joe asks, looking at one of the other books that has its title written in Cyrillic.

"Yeah," Jesse says. "I speak Polish, so I - uh, I learned."

"Wow." Joe smiles at him. "Most of my skills are totally useless in the real world. I could raptor-proof your apartment if you really wanted me to."

Jesse's mouth quirks up. "Given that you can't even keep your own cat in your apartment, I'll pass."

"Ouch!" Joe says dramatically, clutching at his chest. "I'll have you know that Hootie is far more devious and cunning than a velociraptor. Velociraptors would flee form him in fear."

They both look at Hootie, who is nosing Shanti head and purring. Shanti's eyes are closed and Joe's pretty sure that if Shanti were human, she'd be smiling.

"He's a real terror," says Jesse dryly.

"He's in hiding right now," Joe says. "Like a terminator. Or a cylon."

Jesse looks at him blankly. "I don't know what that means."

Joe shakes his head sadly. "I'm going to have to educate you in the world, I see," he says. "Are you free for that dinner any time soon?"

"Um, tonight is actually okay," says Jesse. "But you really don't have to -"

"Look dude, I'm going to spend tonight explaining the plot of Battlestar Galactica to you," says Joe. "You're going to want to get the hell away from me by the end of it."

"I doubt it," says Jesse, smiling. All the breath goes out of Joe and he grins helplessly at Jesse, who looks sincere and cute and Joe just - kind of wants to kiss him. Which, that's sort of unexpected.

"All right," Joe says, reaching over to grab Hootie. "I'll meet you out in the hall at, like, six? And then we'll figure out where to go. Have you ever been to Canters?"

"What's that?" asks Jesse blankly.

"All right, then that's where we're going." Joe hesitates awkwardly, then nods jerkily and says, "Six."

"Yeah," says Jesse and he smiles so that his dimples show. Joe nearly knocks over his chair in his hurry to leave.

"Okay," he says, "yeah," and he gets the hell out of there.

\-----

“Canters is kind of a lame place for a first date,” is all Rami has to say when Joe calls him up to panic at him. “You’re really taking him there?”

“Canters is a fucking fantastic place to take someone,” says Joe. “Excellent food, everyone should go there.”

“True,” says Rami, “but it’s a deli. Shouldn’t you be taking him to, like, The Ivy?”

“First of all, I’m not sure if he _wants_ it to be a date,” says Joe. “Secondly, I think The Ivy would send _me_ into a panic attack, let alone him.”

“Steven Spielberg wrote your recommendation letter,” Rami says blankly. “Shouldn’t you be comfortable rubbing elbows with the elites?”

“That’s completely different!” protests Joe. “I’m not going to do a Lindsay Lohan, okay?”

“Good,” says Rami. “Why did you call me, again?”

“I honestly couldn’t say,” Joe says and he hangs up. Hootie sits on his ankles and Joe glares at him. “This is all your fault.”

Hootie lowers his head and, to all appearances, goes to sleep. Joe sighs and pets the top of Hootie’s head while he thinks. He’s pretty sure he can get away with a collared shirt and jeans - it’s California, so it’s not like many people go around in suits anyway - and besides, he doesn’t even know if Jesse’s interested.

Which leads him to a frantic exchange of text messages with Emma.

_do you know if jesse likes guys_

_do you really think he would have put up with you for this long if he didnt?_ Emma sends back, because she’s a mean, mean girl.

 _i think i asked him out on a date_ , Joe explains. _its hard to tell_

All he receives after that is, _ahahahaha._

Joe scowls and goes to get dressed, shoving a protesting Hootie off his legs. He changes his shirt five times before he talks himself into chilling the fuck out. He’s pretty sure Jesse won’t notice or care if his shirt matches his shoes.

He knocks on Jesse’s door precisely at six and shifts his weight from foot to foot nervously. After a moment, the door opens and Jesse peeks out, his eyes wide. “Hi,” he says. “Are we going, then?”

“Yeah,” Joe says. “You ready?”

Jesse smiles a little and comes out into the hall. “Sure. You have a car, right?”

Joe holds up his keys. “You don’t?”

“Bicycle,” says Jesse.

“You picked a good place in LA for that,” Joe says, inanely, but Jesse doesn’t stop smiling and Joe feels a little heartened by that.

It turns out Jesse is a vegetarian, or at least trying to be one, but he still looks longingly at the pastrami sandwich Joe orders. “That looks really good,” he says wistfully. “I only just became a vegetarian, it’s hard sometimes.”

Joe bites into his sandwich with relish and says through a mouthful of meat, “I could never give up animal flesh.”

Jesse chuckles, dimples showing, and Joe tries not to be helplessly charmed. He fails utterly.

They get back to campus and as they’re passing by the coffee place that Joe frequents, Jesse says, “Oh, I promised Andrew I’d come and say hello,” before heading inside. Joe follows him and is utterly unsurprised to see Emma is also there. She and Andrew have been in this weird mating dance since the beginning of the year. Joe refuses to get involved, but thinks it’s oddly charming to see Emma actually be a little flustered around someone, as it so rarely happens.

“Emily Jean,” he greets. She smirks at him knowingly, arching her eyebrows.

“Had a nice dinner?” she asks.

“Had a nice coffee?” he fires back. Andrew and Jesse are talking, heads bent close together. Andrew is beaming so widely Joe is actually sure that he’s glowing a little. Jesse keeps giggling, looking delighted. “So what’s up with them?”

Emma follows his look. “I don’t even know,” she says sadly. “They’re like, best friends. They took a class with Professor Sorkin like two years ago and they’ve been practically joined at the hip since.”

“But I still have a shot, right?” Joe asks.

“Do you even date guys?” Emma wants to know.

“Apparently I do now.” Joe grins at her. “So. Do I have a shot?”

“Jesse went out with you after knowing you for about two weeks,” Emma says. “That’s got to be some kind of record. So yeah, you have a shot.”

“Excellent,” says Joe.

When they do eventually make it back to their apartment building, Joe is filled with anticipation. They pause in between their doors and Jesse fiddles with his keys, which Joe knows from _Hitch_ is a sign. So he says, “This was kind of a date. If that’s all right.”

“It is,” says Jesse, smiling.

“Right,” says Joe. “Good, that’s great. Then I’m going to kiss you.”

Jesse kind of just nods and Joe leans in, delighted that Jesse is pretty much the exact same height as him. He curls a hand around Jesse’s neck and pulls him in for kiss. Jesse lets out a little sigh and grabs onto Joe’s sleeves.

There’s the sound of triumphant mewling from near their feet. They break apart and Joe glares down  
at the orange bundle of terror that is his cat.

“How in the hell did you get out of the apartment?” he demands and Jesse starts laughing, dropping his head to rest against Joe’s shoulder. Hootie meows again and lies down over their feet.

“I think your cat has ulterior motives,” Jesse says.

“Clearly he likes your food better than mine,” Joe says and he kisses Jesse again because hey, what the hell.

This entry was originally posted at <http://hapakitsune.dreamwidth.org/488333.html>. Comment either place.


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